Conventional premise alarm systems rely upon intrusion detection equipment within the premise to operate long enough to output a signal to a central monitoring facility during an intrusion event. To prevent false alarms, various industry regulations (such as CP01) have arisen that include requirements that enforce a delay between a potential alarm event (e.g., a door opening) and the actual triggering of an alarm report to the central monitoring station (CMS). The problem that the alarm industry faces is the scenario in which an intruder falsely disables the alarm system before the alarm report signal is output (e.g., the intruder physically destroys the security reporting module).
To address this case, conventional systems include software in the security communications module that immediately alerts an intermediary server located externally to the premise whenever a potential alarm event occurs (e.g., if the system is in an armed state and an event occurs that would satisfy an alarm state, a message is sent to the intermediary server). The intermediary server then enacts a countdown of predetermined length that is synchronized with the delays that the security panel itself would enforce before generating an alarm report. In the event that the security panel is then correctly disabled (e.g., disarmed by a home owner with the proper passcode), the panel communication module alerts the intermediary server, which then cancels any actions it might take. However, if the system is not correctly disarmed, and no message is sent to the intermediary server before the termination of the predetermined alarm delay time, the intermediary server then generates an alarm report and sends that over a communications link to the CMS directly.
While the conventional solution to this issue works in some scenarios, it requires equipment within the home to add the intelligence of generating a new type of message that is the “potential” alarm report to the intermediary server. Furthermore, the equipment within the home is required to add intelligence to generate a second message to the intermediary server, and this second message is a cancellation signal in the event the alarm system is disarmed correctly.
The conventional alarm systems also must exactly synchronize their delay-processing algorithm with the delay-processing settings of the security panel itself. In the event that the security panel delay settings are changed (e.g., the “entry delay” or time period before an entry door opening triggers an alarm event) this information must be relayed to the intermediary server and the server's algorithm changed on a per-premise basis. Moreover, the conventional alarm systems require a predetermined amount of time to be specified for the intermediary server's delay, which removes the ability to dynamically adjust the time period based on the events and settings unique to each situation.
The conventional alarm systems also do not anticipate that a security system's reporting capabilities can be disabled before a potential alarm event occurs. The premise alarm system is dependent upon its communications channel to any external server (e.g., broadband, cellular/RF, phone line). A determined intruder can jam (in the case of RF signals) or physically disconnect (in the case of broadband or phone) any of these channels prior to falsely entering the premise. In this event the conventional system solution is completely ineffective, as it cannot anticipate the need to send a “potential alarm event” signal before the communications channel is disabled.